dopamine reset

the boring mission to heal a shorted brain

Rooms by the Sea, 1951, Edward Hopper

I’m doing what I’m calling a “dopamine reset,” which is not a phrase I coined because I read it in the AI-generated summary at the top of a recent google. Effectively, I’m cutting out the micro treats that have damaged my ability to find joy in small pleasures, which is what makes life interesting, and which is what makes me interesting in turn. I would never be 20 again but I do miss how exciting life felt when I didn’t know anything about it yet.

Some of the things I’m cutting out… A litany of recently developed bad habits. I downloaded and promptly deleted TikTok, an app I haven’t used in years until this past month. I have not smoked a cigarette in two weeks, which makes me sad because it means I haven’t done enough nighttime bullshitting, but I do feel better at the gym. I’m thinking of removing the daily cold brew from my routine, even if coffee is a harmless vice (in the grand scheme). And I have put the kibosh on watching old seasons of Love Island. I said, “Ok, if I MUST watch TV, it should at least be a narrative show,” so I tried watching Industry at a friend’s suggestion, and I don’t know what the hell anyone is talking about. It’s a bunch of very HBO sex scenes, intermingled with shots of people standing up from Bloomberg terminals and shouting, “I need two beeps on 50 quid!” My addled brain craves drama and intrigue that it can understand. My addled brain craves baby steps.

*
Nothing about healing the brain is exciting. It’s so boring to subsist on stable and well-balanced inputs. But a friend recently said something on her Instagram story—LOL!—about how good it feels to be awake for your own life, and I was like, Oh shit, I have no significant memories from adulthood, which is an overstatement, but I’m feeling very fatalistic right now.

For instance: I keep waking up in the middle of the night with the sharp awareness of how empty our house has become. The rugs and things that make it cozy are gone, either dropped off at Goodwill or sitting in a storage unit. We move in a few weeks to a smaller house in a more central neighborhood, which is the right thing, but my head hasn’t caught up to my gut, and so I keep gasping myself awake. My brief stint on TikTok taught me that falling asleep with your arms clutched around your torso in a self-hug is a sign that your cortisol (?) is high. Probably from the daily cold brew, or maybe from the sensation of staring at screens for so much of my day.

*
I haven’t been to the pool enough lately, which probably means my nervous system is dysregulated, on top of everything else! I need to feel the shock of cold water at least 2-3 times per week in order to think clearly. Plus, I’m dealing with a real case of the uglies, which I told Marshall about, and all he did was reflexively tell me that I am beautiful. That’s nice and fine, but the uglies persist—I need my eyebrows waxed in a dramatic new way or something. Or maybe I’m just thinking of the recent meme that showed two versions of Zendaya with different eyebrow shapes. They really are the frames of the face. I also recently considered going back to a bob haircut. I think I’m just no good with stagnation and I’ve worn out my desire to wear a sassy ponytail.

What I need to do is overcome the feeling of panic that occurs every time I realize I have unstructured alone time coming my way. My lifestyle has made me soft. I’m trying to break my need for constant stimulation, which probably comes from all the short-form video content and the cold brew and the shared cigarettes and the beautiful years spent living in a make-believe world with my close friends and the access I have to Marshall, with whom I share a deep and reciprocated love.

This year, I am starting work on a novel. An exercise in patience. Christian recently asked me “what do you actually want,” and I’ve been kicking his question around in my head ever since. An attempt at an answer: I want to live a fulfilling and artistic life. I want my brain to tingle when it encounters something beautiful, like a nice slant of light in an Edward Hopper painting, or a good line in a poem, or an honest verse in an old country song, or a meal shared with friends. I’m sending this from the pool where the water is green and sparkling in the early evening sun. I can feel myself forming a memory, my brain hanging on to nothing but what is immediately present.